The company, which specialises in mobile telephone networks,
said net profit leapt to six billion kronor (€662 million) in
the final quarter of 2004, against just 100 million kronor a year
earlier, and that future prospects were good.

Gross earnings after financial items came in at 9.254 billion
kronor, compared with 1.830 billion kronor the previous year, and
average market expectations of 8.932 billion kronor.

The profit gain came amid steadily rising use of mobile phones
worldwide, which Ericsson said experienced the strongest increase
ever in 2004.

"With 300 million new subscribers in 2004, 27 percent of the
world's population now has access to mobile communications," chief
executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement. "This is
exciting for a company with a vision of an all-communicating
world."

Last year saw a "breakthrough" for so-called third-generation
(3G) systems, which allow high-speed delivery of multimedia
content. The number of subscribers for the 3G technology Wideband
Code-Division Multiple-Access (WCDMA) had now passed 16 million, it
said.

The technology has been introduced in Europe and parts of the
Asia-Pacific region last year and rollout plans for 2005 include
North America.

Ericsson said it remained confident about slight growth in the
systems market this year.

"The traffic growth in the world's mobile networks is expected
to continue as a result of new services as well as new subscribers
... For 2005 we maintain our view that the global mobile systems
market will show slight growth compared to 2004," said
Ericsson.

Fourth quarter sales rose nine percent to 39.430 billion kronor,
above market forecasts of 38.304 billion kronor. The company said
all its markets were up, except North America.

On the basis of profits growth, Ericsson said it would pay out a
dividend of 0.25 krona per share, its first in several years.

Sony Ericsson, a mobile handset venture owned jointly by
Ericsson and Sony, contributed 2.1 billion kronor to Ericsson's
pretax profit of 28.398 billion kronor for all of 2004. This
compares with a negative contribution of 600 million kronor the
previous year.

But while acknowledging that Ericsson had returned to cruising
speed after a meltdown in earnings and its share price only three
years ago, analysts said they had hoped for a little more sparkle
in the results.

"It's a normalised situation for this company," said Petri
Arjama, telecommunications analyst at Handelsbanken, adding: "But
they require a boost to the top line. They've become a bit
boring."